


To Help, Or At Least Do No Harm

by MamzelleCombeferre



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, minor descriptions of surgical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MamzelleCombeferre/pseuds/MamzelleCombeferre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joly has a work related breakdown, and Combeferre comforts him the best he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Help, Or At Least Do No Harm

**Author's Note:**

> "Man blames fate for other accidents, but feels personally responsible when he makes a hole in one." -Unknown
> 
> "As to diseases, make a habit of two things—to help, or at least, to do no harm." -Hippocrates

It was late when a knock came at the door, timid and light. Combeferre barely heard it so concentrated was he on an essay, and would have ignored it given the hour if it weren’t for the voice accompanying it. 

“Are you still awake, Combeferre?” Joly’s voice was bleary and betrayed intoxication.  
Combeferre sighed. “The door is open.” Whatever led a drunken Joly to his home and not L’aigle’s probably merited his attention. His intuition was correct as usual. Joly was in a state of disarray, his blond hair half out of its bindings, and his cravat nearly hanging off him. 

“Thank the good Lord for small favors.” The fellow med student collapsed onto the sofa with rather less grace than he usually possessed. He pulled his legs up till he resembled the hedgehogs a lecturer at the lyceum had once brought in, curling himself into a small ball. The room lapsed into silence. Combeferre respectfully waited for Joly to speak and maybe shed some light on the current absurd situation, but it seemed he’d fallen asleep upon impact. Combeferre left it at that and soon after retired to his own room to sleep, hoping that the situation would be explained in the morning.

It was the nature of Combeferre’s apartment that the sun shone right through his window precisely at 8:00 am. Here he would settle down with some coffee and a book (usually something academic, but occasionally a novel) and read till it was time for his first class. Today that was nigh impossible as Joly had taken residence on the sofa and the papers he had been working on the previous night remained unfinished though they were all due the next day. Combeferre had nearly forgotten the other medical student over the course of the night and was more than a little startled to see him still. “Joly?”

The person in question groaned and rolled over-in fact-rolled right off the sofa. A muffled groan wriggled its way from the disheveled heap on the carpet covered ground. Combeferre chuckled, unheard by Joly, for a moment before helping his friend up. “Ow.” Joly muttered, holding his head in his hands. “How much did I drink last night?”

“I’m not certain. You stumbled in around midnight and passed out here.”

Joly looked very confused. “Oh, that doesn’t sound right at all.” 

“I didn’t think so either. Are you alright Joly?” His friend certainly didn’t look it. The paleness and bags under eye could be attributed to the late night of imbibing and indulging, but he gave off the air of a haunted man, his demons new enough that he still thought he might outrun them. 

“I…there was…something happened.” Joly was floundering. His fingers plucked at the sheets. He appeared to be considering the dual options of running or hiding. 

To Combeferre he looked like a scared child. “What happened?” He said, shifting closer to place a comforting hand Joly’s knee. 

“A little girl carried in by her father last night. She had been caught in a riot while walking home from the theater. He had saved for months to take his little girl to the opera, and she had been so excited, but then a small brawl had broken out in front of their building, and in an effort to stop it, one of the brawlers pulled out a gun and shot. The bullet missed him, but hit his daughter. It wasn’t in a fatal location. She might have lived, but then my scalpel slipped, I hit a bigger artery. I-“ Joly stopped speaking to maintain steady breathing. 

“Breathe, Joly!” Combeferre said, jumping up to move next to his friend. He began rubbing circles into Joly’s back to help calm him. They sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity before Joly’s breaths steadied. “I’m sure you did your best.” Combeferre urged when he knew Joly was collected again. “There was likely nothing more you could have done to help her.” 

Joly laughed bitterly in response, voice still shaky, but body composed. “Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said ‘The miserable hath no medicine but only hope?’ That family relied upon me and now their daughter is dead Combeferre. My hands,” He glanced down at the shaking appendages in question, “These hands caused that.”

Combeferre was not at a loss for words per say, but he looked at Joly for several moments before replying. Taking Joly’s hands in a gesture of comfort, he said, “These hands have brought about healing as well.” He moved Joly’s hands so they touched his head. “This mind will bring about a future of hope for all.”

“She’s not a speck on the road to the future, Combeferre.” Joly seemed angry now. He pulled his hands away, clasped them together, and rested them in his lap. “I was standing there when her father found out. He had no other children and no wife.” At this Joly’s voice caught and he took another shaky breath. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes, ran down his cheeks, and as though a dam had broken, he began to weeping. It was though all of yesterday’s frustrations were pouring out of him now.

Combeferre pulled his friend close and held him while he grieved. Joly, while vulnerable now, seemed to have grown infinitely wiser in the last twenty-four hours. Despite having a year’s experience over Joly in the way of interning, he had not faced this problem. This was a piece of practical knowledge that Joly was now acquainted with, and more so, Combeferre had no desire to gain the same familiarity.

Eventually the sobs slowed to hiccups, so Joly sat there shivering in the way one does after an extreme emotional purgation. Neither spoke for several minutes until awkwardly, Joly tried to apologize for his anger.

With his own apology, Combeferre interrupted. “I had no intentions to demean her death, but it seems I have done so, and I should be the one to apologize. It is far too easy to let a cultivated doctoral indifference get in the way of decent human emotion. Not that you should react this way every time someone dies under your knife, but it was your first time and I’m sorry.”

“All the same I’m sorry for coming in and ruining your morning like this.” He did look sorry, but rather more embarrassed, his eyes downcast, as if desiring the floor to open up and swallow him whole. “You seemed busy. Are you working on something?” 

“Just papers for some classes and an article for our next pamphlet. Nothing so important that it couldn’t wait to help a friend.” Combeferre deftly turned the conversation away from his own stressors. He knew that Joly was stronger then he looked, but all the same he looked weak and tired and so much younger than his 23 years right then that he couldn’t sit any more on those shoulders for fear Joly would collapse. “Are you busy today?”

Joly shook his head, doing his best to suppress a yawn.

“Then I’ll make some tea, and you can rest for awhile longer. Then, if you would like we can have dinner before our meeting tonight.” 

“Thank you, I would like that.” Joly smiled. His still looked exhausted, but lighter somehow with its presence. He laid out on the sofa again, shutting his eyes, and pulling the blanket up from the floor to curl into. 

“Sleep well.” Combeferre said.


End file.
